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It would be trivially easy to throw away half a billion dollars like this. All you'd have to do is have a winning ticket for a $500MM lottery jackpot in your po

by CPLX 5y ago

It would be trivially easy to throw away half a billion dollars like this. All you'd have to do is have a winning ticket for a $500MM lottery jackpot in your pocket and put it through the laundry. Crypto is gambling. People have done it for millennia. You invent some system and some arbitrary rules about what’s valuable (the right domino, an ace of hearts, a jpeg of a monkey, a beanie baby) and then some people win some money and some people lose. This guy won, and then he lost. Oh well. Just like with the lost lottery ticket no enterprise of actual value has been created or destroyed by this misfortune.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"Crypto is gambling" Bitcoin is 14 years old now, it's time to get used to it. There are people who hold who were born after it was invented. Its older than some financial instruments. I am not arguing it will be successfull or that its good, but it is definately proven beyong gambling
- chinathrow 5y ago
  > but it is definately proven beyong gambling Not following here - how and where was this proven?
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  The lottery is more than 14 years old now, it’s time to get used to it. There are people with tickets who were born after it was invented. It’s older than some financial instruments. I am not arguing it will be successfull or that its good, but it is definately proven beyond gambling.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Bitcoin is 14 years old now, it's time to get used to it. [...] Its older than some financial instruments. I am not arguing it will be successfull or that its good, but it is definately proven beyong gambling No, it hasn't. Being around for more than 14 years doesn't prove something is anything more than gambling. Slot machines have been around almost 10 times as long as Bitcoin, and sticking money into them is still gambling.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Let's go step by step: Gambling is putting down money in a game of chance, that is divorced from physical reality. It contributes nothing to the real economy, horse races do not provide any goods or services. Like horse racing or slot machines. If the US economy collapses, slot machine works the same way. Value of Bitcoin is providing a real service that functions, payments. Etherium provides computation and used to power crypto-kitties, etc. It was operating for 14 years and it's security functionality is proven. You might think it's function is crap, but that's a separate argument. If Visa and Mastercard collapse tomorrow, that would have a dramatic effect on the value of crypto. If a major government adopts it as a national currency, that would have an effect to. Therefore it is very much like investing in a startup. Now, the individual people investing into it might have no idea how it works, but how is this different from idiots and speculators among retail investors - Elon Musk tweets about Signal, and value of Signal Advance, a totally unrelated company, goes up 1,100%? That's not gambling but bitcoin is? I am certain that most of the folks here calling it gambling are not objectively sceptical, they are very salty. I have accepted things for what they are, I mined my first two bitcoins, spent them on beer at a funky pub in Prague when it was worth $50, and never touched it again. People in the community ranged from anarchists to bankers, and they were more passionate about their work than any startup founders I've seen. I am not envious of them and I don't call them names, I appreciate that they've introduced something completely new to the world even if the outcome is a bit questionable. NFTs on the other hand seem to have no merit behind them whatsoever, or at least so far I could not see it.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Gambling is putting down money in a game of chance, that is divorced from physical reality No, gambling doesn't require the game be divorced from physical reality; and, in fact, none of them are.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        Can your address the substance of my post rather than nitpick dictionary definition of a word? And if you are going to do that, at least contrast speculation and gambling, since that's what we disagree about
- CPLX 5y ago
  > Bitcoin is 14 years old now, it's time to get used to it. There are people who hold who were born after it was invented. The entirety of modern civilization has been created since the invention of Keno and playing cards. Not sure where you're going with this.
jkepler 5y ago
Figures someone would mention laundering money.
toolz 5y ago
Yes crypto is gambling. So is fiat. This seems to be where people get confused. They think just because everything is priced in fiat that fiat somehow is immune from value swings. Which it's really weird that people believe that given how much the price of things priced in USD changes so much. Literally everything is a gamble - there's no such thing as a risk-less vehicle for maintaining your wealth. Maybe something like bitcoin is more volatile than USD today, but that is not guaranteed to hold in the future. Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability, but with global adoption of bitcoin I suspect even that property will be more satisfied by crypto in the not-so-distant future.
- CPLX 5y ago
  The word gambling has a meaning. People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. People do primarily procure crypto primarily in order to profit from its change in value. The fact that each can (sort of) be used for the other purpose in limited cases doesn't invalidate that. > Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services.
  - toolz 5y ago
    > The word gambling has a meaning. I'm aware of that and I'm aware of the meaning. Which is why I used the word. > People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. This is exactly the definition of procuring something to use it to increase their own value. When someone receives a good or service they value that good or service higher than the fiat they are holding which is exactly the gamble they're taking by procuring the fiat. > It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services. I guess I could say "no you're wrong" too, but that's not a fruitful argument crypto is more fungible than fiat (fiat isn't global and doesn't have global access to exchanging for other fiats, even) crypto is more durable, fiat is easily destroyed crypto is more portable, I can take literally billions of USD worth of crypto across borders and spend every single penny of it instantly. You couldn't even begin to hope to have that kind of portability of fiat. crypto as a category is much more recognizable - there are _many_ different services that will guarantee the authenticity of a bitcoin transfer, while the fiat you're being paid in may very well be counterfeit. finaly the property of stability - fiat wins here, for now.

by CPLX 5y ago

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"Crypto is gambling" Bitcoin is 14 years old now, it's time to get used to it. There are people who hold who were born after it was invented. Its older than some financial instruments. I am not arguing it will be successfull or that its good, but it is definately proven beyong gambling

chinathrow 5y ago
> but it is definately proven beyong gambling Not following here - how and where was this proven?
jodrellblank 5y ago
The lottery is more than 14 years old now, it’s time to get used to it. There are people with tickets who were born after it was invented. It’s older than some financial instruments. I am not arguing it will be successfull or that its good, but it is definately proven beyond gambling.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Bitcoin is 14 years old now, it's time to get used to it. [...] Its older than some financial instruments. I am not arguing it will be successfull or that its good, but it is definately proven beyong gambling No, it hasn't. Being around for more than 14 years doesn't prove something is anything more than gambling. Slot machines have been around almost 10 times as long as Bitcoin, and sticking money into them is still gambling.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Let's go step by step: Gambling is putting down money in a game of chance, that is divorced from physical reality. It contributes nothing to the real economy, horse races do not provide any goods or services. Like horse racing or slot machines. If the US economy collapses, slot machine works the same way. Value of Bitcoin is providing a real service that functions, payments. Etherium provides computation and used to power crypto-kitties, etc. It was operating for 14 years and it's security functionality is proven. You might think it's function is crap, but that's a separate argument. If Visa and Mastercard collapse tomorrow, that would have a dramatic effect on the value of crypto. If a major government adopts it as a national currency, that would have an effect to. Therefore it is very much like investing in a startup. Now, the individual people investing into it might have no idea how it works, but how is this different from idiots and speculators among retail investors - Elon Musk tweets about Signal, and value of Signal Advance, a totally unrelated company, goes up 1,100%? That's not gambling but bitcoin is? I am certain that most of the folks here calling it gambling are not objectively sceptical, they are very salty. I have accepted things for what they are, I mined my first two bitcoins, spent them on beer at a funky pub in Prague when it was worth $50, and never touched it again. People in the community ranged from anarchists to bankers, and they were more passionate about their work than any startup founders I've seen. I am not envious of them and I don't call them names, I appreciate that they've introduced something completely new to the world even if the outcome is a bit questionable. NFTs on the other hand seem to have no merit behind them whatsoever, or at least so far I could not see it.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Gambling is putting down money in a game of chance, that is divorced from physical reality No, gambling doesn't require the game be divorced from physical reality; and, in fact, none of them are.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      Can your address the substance of my post rather than nitpick dictionary definition of a word? And if you are going to do that, at least contrast speculation and gambling, since that's what we disagree about
CPLX 5y ago
> Bitcoin is 14 years old now, it's time to get used to it. There are people who hold who were born after it was invented. The entirety of modern civilization has been created since the invention of Keno and playing cards. Not sure where you're going with this.

jkepler 5y ago

Figures someone would mention laundering money.

toolz 5y ago

Yes crypto is gambling. So is fiat. This seems to be where people get confused. They think just because everything is priced in fiat that fiat somehow is immune from value swings. Which it's really weird that people believe that given how much the price of things priced in USD changes so much. Literally everything is a gamble - there's no such thing as a risk-less vehicle for maintaining your wealth. Maybe something like bitcoin is more volatile than USD today, but that is not guaranteed to hold in the future. Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability, but with global adoption of bitcoin I suspect even that property will be more satisfied by crypto in the not-so-distant future.

CPLX 5y ago
The word gambling has a meaning. People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. People do primarily procure crypto primarily in order to profit from its change in value. The fact that each can (sort of) be used for the other purpose in limited cases doesn't invalidate that. > Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services.
- toolz 5y ago
  > The word gambling has a meaning. I'm aware of that and I'm aware of the meaning. Which is why I used the word. > People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. This is exactly the definition of procuring something to use it to increase their own value. When someone receives a good or service they value that good or service higher than the fiat they are holding which is exactly the gamble they're taking by procuring the fiat. > It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services. I guess I could say "no you're wrong" too, but that's not a fruitful argument crypto is more fungible than fiat (fiat isn't global and doesn't have global access to exchanging for other fiats, even) crypto is more durable, fiat is easily destroyed crypto is more portable, I can take literally billions of USD worth of crypto across borders and spend every single penny of it instantly. You couldn't even begin to hope to have that kind of portability of fiat. crypto as a category is much more recognizable - there are _many_ different services that will guarantee the authenticity of a bitcoin transfer, while the fiat you're being paid in may very well be counterfeit. finaly the property of stability - fiat wins here, for now.